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Monday, 30 July 2012

AS ADOKE BATTLES PETROL SUBSIDY THIEVES By Emmanuel Onwubiko

A mutual friend who is not media
savvy and is indeed as media shy as much as the current Minister of Justice and
Federal Attorney General Mohammed Bello Adoke, esq [SAN] is, peeped through the
screen of my laptop computer on Monday morning while I was completely
immersed and deeply carried away by the flow of thoughts' pattern and
what I thought to be an articulate presentation of an essay I
was typing with the help of the keyboard titled "As Adoke
Battles petrol subsidy thieves" and she shouted
'WHAT?'.

At first I never read any sinister
import into her early morning oral vibration since I have always known her to
be a good Poet so I indeed thought she was making up her mind to settle
down into writing one of her many great poems, particularly upon my realisation
that she just emerged from the "REST ROOM" acclaimed as one of those
unfathomable places that she gets her inspiration as a budding writer and
poet, but I was dead wrong. She took a second look at the theme of my
piece and shook her head violently as if to say that this man is indeed not
serious about what he was doing and she repeated her word-'WHAT?'.

Looking at her in terrifying
amazement with a demand written all over my lips for her to offer possible
explanation for what I may consider a sudden and rude exclamation upon her
sighting my piece but she would not let me have it on a platter of gold
even as she stood up and made to walk away in stupefying shock.

But I left the computer and accosted
her as quickly as she could walk and pleaded with her to give me the meaning of
her exclamation because as a writer I have always fancied peer review as one of
the ways to gauge the quality and standard of any piece that I am going to send
to the public space since the Nigerian public is increasingly becoming
sophisticated and academically upwardly mobile to decipher when they are being
taken for a ride and to shout blue murder.

She offered very scanty but
well- loaded words thus; "Do you really believe from the bottom of your
heart that the current holder of the office of the Federal Attorney General and
Minister of Justice Mohammed Bello Adoke would have the liver to competently
prosecute members of this powerful fuel subsidy cabal alleged to have stolen
huge public fund and donated part of these massive stolen wealth to the
campaign treasury of the Peoples Democratic Party's Presidential flag
bearer in the 2011 General Election- the current President Dr. Good Luck
Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan?."

Knowing me for being tenacious in
holding and defending what some analysts may term as hardline stance on
some issues that border on the need for the Government to wage unrelenting war
against corruption and economic crimes, my mutual friend who asked that I never
mentioned her name further asked me that; " Don’t you think
that what the current Government is doing by parading these small accused
persons in the ongoing judicial procedure relating to the disappearance of over
half a trillion tax payers' fund is to just use them as experimental guinea
pigs to confuse the vocal members of the public and create an impression that
at least the Federal Government has indeed summoned courage to do the needful
by charging some persons connected to powerful politicians in court for alleged
theft of subsidy fund?

My friend simply told me that she
completely adopts the position canvassed by the veteran and courageous columnist
of Daily Sun Newspaper Mr. Duro Onabule who indeed wrote a piece titled;
"Guinea Pigs on trial for fuel subsidy fraud" in his column of Friday
July 27th 2012 page 23. She repeated aspects of Uncle Onabule's position
that; "It is not as if these trials are anything serious or even
ground-breaking ventures. Recall past showdowns of the same magnitude? After
the lawyers, the suspects will plead not guilty. Their lawyers will then argue
for bail which will often be reflected with the offer of a substitute to be
filed. The Suspects would then be clamped into EFCC custody. The court will
then adjourn till a specific return date for the bail application to be
argued...Mark it, nobody will be punished for the fuel subsidy fraud as public
interest will be deliberately wearied and waned out. Nobody will even remember.
Of course, there may be token fines of ten million Naira for the Billions of
Naira stolen in each case".

Duro Onabule has been in and out of
Government at the highest level as Chief Spokesperson of a powerful office
holder in one of Nigeria's military dictatorship so most persons
believe that he knows what he was writing since he has been part of the ruling
elite and so is in a better position to decode the techniques of what the
late Music Icon Fela Anikulapo Kuti would rightly call "GOVERNMENT
MAGIC". But some other persons who equally should know dismiss him as a
Nigerian who has lost out of the political power equation and is therefore out
to hit back at the current beneficiaries of the "spoils" of political
offices. Who knows? But in all of these arguments one thing is as sure as the
Northern STARS and that is the fact that Mr. Duro Onabule is a man of his words
and he is courageous, firm and he is a man that has achieved high level of
integrity and credibility as a columnist who puts down what he believes to be
true.

But again, as a writer I am also a
person who believes in giving each person the benefits of doubt and in
this instance I know that the Federal Attorney General is a man known by
most of his friends as a principled believer in the RULE OF LAW and not RULE OF
THE MOB and therefore would stick tenaciously to following the due legal
process in seeking to bring alleged law breakers like the suspected petrol
subsidy thieves to swift trial.

Adoke is a man though media shy but
a great and consummate reader of quality books and journals including
newspapers, is aware that the judgment of history is swift and decisive and
therefore would not let his good name and image be dragged to the mud of
comprehensive historical condemnation should the public perceive that those
undergoing trial for allegedly stealing huge taxpayers money from the petrol
subsidy fund scheme are only being paraded as "GUINEA PIGS' to masquerade
and confuse Nigerians into thinking that Government is determined to bring
decisive justice to these characters no matter how very powerfully
connected they are to some very influential persons in the current
administration.

Knowing Mohammed Bello Adoke as a
good man from the abundance of human evidence that I have
gathered in the last twelve years and also following his work pattern in the
last couple of months that he was appointed into the powerful office of
the Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice, I am going to give him
the benefit of the doubt to competently charge, prosecute and obtain quality
conviction of these persons charged now in the competent courts of law in accordance
with section 6 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999
[as amended] not necessarily because public opinion is of the well
considered view that those who steal from the public till must be punished
sternly but because it is lawful and just to bring alleged perpetrators of
economic crime to swift justice and to retrieve allegedly stolen public fund
put at over N400 billion by two highly powered technical Presidential
committees headed by a tested and trusted Banking Executive Mr. Aigboje
Aig-Imoukhuede.

Appraising the beautiful scorecard
of these two Presidential committees that investigated and unearthed the huge
heist in the management of the fuel subsidy scheme, the highly rated newspaper
columnist and journalist Mr. Simon Kolawole wrote on Sunday July 29th 2012 in
his back page column in ThisDay newspaper titled;"STILL ON FUEL SUBSIDY,
FAKE SUBSIDY" that "Millions of Nigerians are being made to
bear a higher cost of living through the removal of fuel subsidy because
we are told the bill is 'unsustainable'. Now we know where the bulk of the fake
subsidy is going. I ask: Is that one sustainable?".

The ball is in the court of Mohammed
Bello Adoke to ensure that substantial justice is brought to bear on these
alleged petrol subsidy thieves and indeed Nigerians will monitor the court
rooms to see if their Lordships will deny Nigerians the fruit of justice by
compromising on the prosecution of these suspected petrol thieves in these
trials that have just been dubbed as 'silent revolution' by the newly appointed
Senor Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs Dr. Doyin
Okupe who spoke with Chuks Okocha of Thisday at the weekend. Adoke may bring
quality body of evidence to nail these subsidy thieves but if the courts presided
over by Judges are not predisposed to render good justice there is nothing the
Minister of justice can do since he is not the ultimate minister in these
temples of justice but the judges are.

HURIWA'S WORKING VISIT TO ICPC ON THE 27TH MARCH 2013

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS' ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA; HURIWA, ON DECEMBER 12TH 2012 VISITED THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY[NEMA] ALHAJI MOHAMMAD SANI-SIDI ON THE CELEBRATION OF WORLD HUMAN RIGHTS DAY TO CONFER ON HIM THE HUMAN RIGHTS PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012 BY THE ORGANIZATION. THE DG PROMISED TO TAKE DISASTER MANAGEMENT LESSONS TO ALL PARTS OF NIGERIA. HURIWA WAS LED BY ITS NATIONAL COORDINATOR COMRADE EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO.